Cyclic rapid warming on centennial‐scale revealed by a 2650‐year stalagmite record of warm season temperature

Ming Tan(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Tungsheng Liu(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Juzhi Hou(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Xiaoguang Qin(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Hucai Zhang(Lanzhou University), Tieying Li(China Geological Survey)
Geophysical Research Letters
June 1, 2003
10.1029/2003gl017352
Cited by 347Open Access
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Abstract

A 2650‐year (BC665‐AD1985) warm season (MJJA: May, June, July, August) temperature reconstruction is derived from a correlation between thickness variations in annual layers of a stalagmite from Shihua Cave, Beijing, China and instrumental meteorological records. Observations of soil CO 2 and drip water suggest that the temperature signal is amplified by the soil‐organism‐CO 2 system and recorded by the annual layer series. Our reconstruction reveals that centennial‐scale rapid warming occurred repeatedly following multicentenial cooling trends during the last millennia. These results correlate with different records from the Northern Hemisphere, indicating that the periodic alternation between cool and warm periods on a sub‐millennial scale had a sub‐hemispherical influence.

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